Fuel spills that occur at automobile fueling stations are hazardous to the safety of individuals at or near the fueling station and to the environment. Fuel spills at fuel stations used by trucks in the trucking industry are common and in some cases, involve a large volume of fuel spilled. Clearly large volume fuel spills are extremely hazardous and can result in a loss of revenue.
Fuel spills at stations used in the trucking industry are generally the result of a nozzle being left unattended during pumping. Drivers commonly leave fuel nozzles unattended during filling due to the time required to fuel a large truck. In many cases, the fuel pump, the fuel line from the pump and the nozzle at the end of the fuel line are all in working order and have no defects. Thus, such spills are caused by other factors. For example, when fueling a truck, it is common for a driver to walk away from the truck or to attend to other matters around the truck. When left unattended, the spout portion of the nozzle then dislodges from the fuel inlet of the truck. This occurs for many reasons including, for example, due to accidental interference by the driver of the truck by inadvertently knocking or bumping the fuel line leading to the nozzle, due to wind that moves the fuel line and thereby moves the nozzle, due to changes in pressure that commonly occur at multi-fueling point stations or due to back pressure from the tank as the volume of fuel in the tank increases.
To reduce the occurrence of such spills at truck fueling sites, laws have been introduced requiring all persons fueling vehicles to be in attendance at the fueling point during fueling. Such laws however, are difficult to enforce.
To prevent persons from walking away from the pump during filling, hold-open clips that were present on the handle portion on 7H style nozzles in the past, are no longer available at truck fueling stations. These hold-open clips allow the driver to engage the clip to hold the trigger of the nozzle in the open position, without having to maintain hand contact with the trigger. The removal of these hold-open clips has not prevented drivers from leaving fuel pumps unattended during fueling, however. Foreign objects are commonly jammed into the handle of the nozzle to force the trigger into the open position and therefore allow the driver to leave the pump unattended during fueling.
Because, many drivers continue to walk away from the fueling point during fueling of their trucks, it is desirable to inhibit a nozzle from becoming dislodged from a fuel inlet of truck in the case that the fueling point is left unattended.